Algalon vs. Arthas?

You know, I've long since glossed over the concerns of various power levels of bosses in WoW. The fact that two random worms somebody caught in the hills of Northrend can kick the butt of C'Thun stopped bothering me a long time ago, so I don't think that's the problem I have with the placement of the Algalon fight.

So, with the fight with Arthas finally on the horizon, I've been thinking a lot about the road leading up to it: specifically Ulduar, and the fight with Algalon the Observer, and something about it just rings false with me.

For those of you that don't know the background, Algalon is a representative of the titans, sent to check on Azeroth after Loken's death activates a failsafe mechanism. He's charged with observing how things are going, and if things have deviated from the titans' plan too much, to report back and have the planet purged of all living things, and restored to it's original state—basically just hit the giant reset button. It's a pretty cool idea for a boss, and I think it's a little unfortunate that so few people will see it at all, let alone what happens after you actually beat him.

Now, I understand, believe you me, that Arthas MUST be the final fight of WotLK. It's called Wrath of the Lich King for goodness sakes. And yet, I can't help but feel like the stakes are higher fighting Algalon than fighting Arthas. (This is, of course, patently untrue, I admit. The stakes are exactly the same: extermination of all even remotely living things on Azeroth.) It sounds just a little bit like, “Okay, after you've finished gearing up by fighting a god, you're finally ready to take on a supervillain." Am I the only one who's a little put off by that?

Okay, there's plenty of demon energy in there, and Ner'zhul was the favored of Sargeras, who IS one of the titans, but think about it this way: If Algalon gave the word, and one of the titans pressed the reset button, what would happen to Arthas? I expect he'd go the same way as the rest of us: Gone, in the blink of an eye. But no doubt Arthas is going to be a much harder fight, and have a much bigger payoff if you beat him.

I think Algalon is a more dramatic fight because it happens on a larger scale. Even when we went to Draenor, all the tough fights were tying up loose ends from Azeroth: Kael'thas, Illidan, etc.—and Arthas is the culmination of that storyline. Even in Ulduar, you're dealing with the Old Ones, and how Yogg-Saron has driven his keepers mad. The titans have remained a distant force of godly power and proportion, but with little to no interest or involvement in the trials and tribulations of their creations.

Now that Algalon has shown up, the titans not only have a representative, but they've been established as potentially malicious (or if not malicious, at the very least cruelly disinterested), which seems to raise the stakes on the level of conflict in the entire World of Warcraft.

All issues of relative power level and size of conflict aside, the very act of directly defying your creator is something that I can't help but feel deserves more attention that the Algalon fight seems to give it. It looks like I, for one, will have to wait for Cataclysm.

Comments

Comment by Nukedoom

I agree with the fact that there is a more direct danger associated with Algalon than with Arthas, and in that sense, Algalon is the "bigger fight".

But, I would like to believe that the battle with the Lich King is much more than a fight over the fate of the world.

Algalon was a black swan event and we dealt with that problem promptly, but Arthas is more than a simple "destroyer of worlds" character; he was one of us and betrayed our trust.

He actually destroyed lives; Algalon only attempted to do so.

Comment by Fizzles

on 2009-12-18T19:58:50-06:00

Excellent read.Algalon was/is powerful, but this wasn't the first time a boss that wasn't truly 'end-game' was tougher than the actual boss. The Four Horsemen in Naxx-40 went 4 weeks without a first kill. Not to mention the fact that although Illidan was on the case of Burning Crusade, he wasn't the last/toughest boss, Kil'jaeden was.It's only early into Wrath, and although Cataclysm is on the horizon, I'm sure Blizzard will send us a new Patch and with it a new boss to kill.

Captcha: nomww.

Comment by Adamsm

on 2009-12-18T20:00:20-06:00

Algalon was the bigger threat sure..... but he only found out what going on after we broke down his door and stormed in. Till that point, he was merely monitoring the world and observing what was happening; between the rise of Two Old Gods, an invasion of Demons, and a little Undeath creature getting too big for his britches, the Observer didn't seem to care too much. It wasn't until a bunch of little creatures challenged him personally that he began to feel the world might need a reset.... which does seem a little strange when you put it that way heh.

Comment by HiVolt

on 2009-12-18T20:24:03-06:00

I think that the Titans' complacency actually does a lot for making the gray moral scale very apparent in WoW.

As for the whole idea of fighting a god before fighting a supervillian... I don't know if I would agree.

It's not really all that clear on what Algalon's job actually is, other than basically being a middle-man between the Titan-shaped worlds and the Titans themselves. Sure, he could press the reset button and send us all into the void... but it seems like that could be done by almost anything nowadays.

Again, this goes back to the mortals being the most powerful beings in the Warcraft Universe, rather than the supposedly all-powerful gods and demigods.

After all, it only took one Orc to kill the most powerful of the Pit Lords and a demigod of Nature. It only took an enchanted axe and an Orc to nearly cut Sargeras in half. It only took a rather powerful (yet still mortal) wizard to defeat the Avatar of Sargeras himself.

No, I think it's more like we fought a less-powerful god to take on one that is much more of a threat, and to some extent, more powerful.

Comment by Eluneril

on 2009-12-18T20:25:01-06:00

Yeah, excellent read :D

And I totally agree - I've always thought that, if ever WoW comes to an end, the final expansion should be about rising up against the titans or something like that. It's just such a cool idea. As you put it, 'cruelly disinterested' - You can imagine the races of Azeroth rising up against that, being constantly ignored, and even sending someone to potentially wipe them out. It would also make for a really cool expansion game-play wise. Going up some huge glowing celestial stairs and defeating the creator of Azeroth and the pantheon has so much potential.

It also throws away the sort of idea of ''Alliance = Goody two shoes type people, fighting for all that is just and right hurrah'' and the ''Horde = Slightly more 'hardcore' in the way they do things, but essentially have just been mistreated a lot and are still 'good' at their centre''. Rising up against the being who created you, who is not entirely evil, but you are insignificant to, mixes up the whole ''Good/bad'' thing that is present in so many games, stories and films. It's not like ''Big evil flaming dude is evil, let's rise up with our shiney light and fight for justice yey'', it's much deeper than that, and can be taken from many different perspectives.

I also think that it would strike a chord in real life - Rising up against what might be a representation of god. I know that many, many people feel that maybe a god does exist, but he's turned his back on us - Especially people who have suffered a terrible personal loss, such as a miscarriage or a tsunami or something. Many also feel that god / the gods are infallible in all that they do, and there's reasons for everything that happens it's just that we don't know them. Many people also believe in no god at all, and partially resent what religion has done to society. I think if a game made us rise up against this god / these gods, it would be much more 'poetic' (For want of a better word) - To some people, it would be morally wrong (Which I think is not entirely bad in some cases - E.g, the terrorist mission in Modern Warfare 2. I think if a game makes you actively think what you're doing is morally wrong, it is very effective and sometimes even moving), to others it would be rising up against what they might blame for terrible occurences in real life, maybe the loss of a loved one prematurely. So many poems, books and films are incredibly moving with such things - I think games are slightly removed from that, being much more ''Kill bad guys, pwn nubs, get points''. I think it would be a good thing for the industry as a whole if it could move more towards the very touching ''Dulce et Decorum est'' type of media / storytelling and move away from ''Sweet, just scored an epic headshot on this nub in CoD: World at War I'm so pro!'' type of thinking.

However it was recieved, it would certainely go down with a bang if done correctly, and would be a hell of a way to end an amazing series that's been such a big part of so many peoples lifes.

Comment by Adamsm

on 2009-12-18T20:30:58-06:00

It only took an enchanted axe and an Orc to nearly cut Sargeras in half.

He nicked his ankle, then a dragon mage and a bunch of other ones blasted the cut to freeze Sargeras in place to close the portal.

Comment by zdouse

on 2009-12-18T20:32:47-06:00

Algalon was the bigger threat sure..... but he only found out what going on after we broke down his door and stormed in. Till that point, he was merely monitoring the world and observing what was happening; between the rise of Two Old Gods, an invasion of Demons, and a little Undeath creature getting too big for his britches, the Observer didn't seem to care too much. It wasn't until a bunch of little creatures challenged him personally that he began to feel the world might need a reset.... which does seem a little strange when you put it that way heh.

So many things are wrong with that...

Comment by ArgentSun

on 2009-12-18T20:33:33-06:00

Start pointing them out.

Comment by Adamsm

on 2009-12-18T20:34:01-06:00

Algalon was the bigger threat sure..... but he only found out what going on after we broke down his door and stormed in. Till that point, he was merely monitoring the world and observing what was happening; between the rise of Two Old Gods, an invasion of Demons, and a little Undeath creature getting too big for his britches, the Observer didn't seem to care too much. It wasn't until a bunch of little creatures challenged him personally that he began to feel the world might need a reset.... which does seem a little strange when you put it that way heh.

So many things are wrong with that...

Yes, I'd like to hear what I got wrong there.

Comment by HiVolt

on 2009-12-18T20:37:08-06:00

It only took an enchanted axe and an Orc to nearly cut Sargeras in half.

He nicked his ankle, then a dragon mage and a bunch of other ones blasted the cut to freeze Sargeras in place to close the portal.

Hey, I don't come in and downplay your exaggerations do I? :P

Comment by Adamsm

on 2009-12-18T20:41:29-06:00

It only took an enchanted axe and an Orc to nearly cut Sargeras in half.

He nicked his ankle, then a dragon mage and a bunch of other ones blasted the cut to freeze Sargeras in place to close the portal.

Hey, I don't come in and downplay your exaggerations do I? :P

Yes, yes you do.

Comment by lorebain

on 2009-12-18T20:50:02-06:00

The folks a Blizzard screwed up their lore. Sadly, I think it was a matter of being lazy more then anything. That or someone was just way too in love with the Arthas story line.

They had the Arthas/Lich King story line from Warcraft III and kept working it. I think that was a mistake. They could have/should have finished that one up a long time ago and not turned it into the end all be all of WoW.

The Titans was a more open, more malleable line of lore. They seem to have just kind of patched things in with little though to what they really could do. A pity too. There was a lot they could have done, but now they have pretty much blown it.

For end game we could be fighting gods for the fate of Azeroth (we did, but it's been played down) and instead we are fighting a petty, immature (abet VERY powerful) man who allowed himself to be taken over by some sort of demonic thing in his desire for power.

At least after the IC 5 mans, we no longer have Jaina hoping to get him back. Maybe she & Thrall will finally get busy and crate the first of a hybrid Orc/Human race. evil laugh

Comment by Fyuu

on 2009-12-18T20:50:49-06:00

I think the difference is that Algalon and the Titans aren't inherantly evil in alignment. They're just doing what they think is right.

Arthas, on the other hand, wants something of a necrotic orgy on Azeroth.

Comment by Unyaro

on 2009-12-18T21:25:26-06:00

From my understanding of it, Algalon was not observing all these events occuring, that was Loken's job, and he had been corrupted. With Loken's death Algalon was alerted to an issue and sent to examine the situation.

So Algalon only comes into the picture AFTER Loken's death.

Then you need to take a look at Algalon, his title is the Observer, not the destroyer, or some hardcore title like that. Just an observer.

So when you think about it, Algalon could literally be a weak feeble 10 year old compared to what the titans COULD have sent if they just wanted to wipe Azeroth out.

So no, it doesn't seem that unreasonable that we beat a guy who was just coming down to look at what was up and have him be weaker than a guy who's gearing up to conquer the world.

Comment by LunaSaint

on 2009-12-18T22:09:33-06:00

After some consideration, I think The Lich King is right to be the endboss.

For starters, the titan plotline is most certainly not complete. As other people have already stated, Algalon is the herald of the titans, and his title is the Observer. What's more, is that you defeat him by reasoning him with your strength and willpower.

The whole chain is fantastically written and gives a serious sense of peril - it's awesome. But Algalon himself is not an insane, omnipotent force. You fight him whilst he scans the planet and transmit reply code Omega. It's clear he can't do it on his own, and so he's not on the level of the Lich King. Also, above anything, it's shown that he can be reasoned with.

The Lich King (I refuse to call it Arthas if I'm going to be serious about this, especially after the new 5-mans) most certainly cannot be reasoned with - At this point he's a manifestation of corrupted shamanism and necrotic forces, fuelled by the anguish of the mortal races. I suspect there's going to be a lot involved with trying to draw what's left of Arthas out of him - hell, by the way it's been portrayed until now, it might be the only way for the players to fight toe-to-toe with the abomination.

Comment by rincewind147

on 2009-12-18T22:14:57-06:00

Now, I understand, believe you me, that Arthas MUST be the final fight of WotLK. It's called Wrath of the Lich King for goodness sakes.

Last I checked, Illidan wasn't the last boss of The Burning Crusade. I am a bit dissapointed this post was a blog, as it seems to be yet another ill-informed topic that has been brought up for every single boss ever made(see http://www.wowhead.com/?forums&topic=90377 for example). There will most likely be another content patch just like sunwell was added last expansion. A whole (roughly) year seems a bit much for one raid.

Comment by Adamsm

on 2009-12-18T22:18:54-06:00

There will most likely be another content patch just like sunwell was added last expansion. A whole (roughly) year seems a bit much for one raid.

Sunwell was added in because the hard-core crowd just steam rolled the Emo-king, and Wrath wasn't ready to go at that point. At least with the staggered phases of ICC, it will take longer for that to happen to the Lich King.

Comment by L33tsauce

on 2009-12-18T22:37:23-06:00

A bad analogy would be:

Algalon= 9/11

Arthas= The hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

A better analogy would be:

Algalon = Nuclear Apocalypse

Arthas = Hitler

Comment by Kalken

on 2009-12-18T22:46:22-06:00

It only took an enchanted axe and an Orc to nearly cut Sargeras in half.

He nicked his ankle, then a dragon mage and a bunch of other ones blasted the cut to freeze Sargeras in place to close the portal.

That Orc was also Saurfang's brother...

Comment by Adamsm

on 2009-12-18T22:48:03-06:00

That Orc was also Saurfang's brother...

And Draenosh was his nephew and the son of Saurfang, and the Lich King wtfpwn'ed him and turned him into a Death Knight.